Saint Joseph Catholic Church

“The longer the conflict with Iran continues, including the risk of deploying ground troops to the region, the greater the risk of a dramatic escalation risking an ever-greater regional conflict,” Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City said on April 1, as he joined “our Holy Father’s urgent calls for the Administration and all parties involved to take decisive action toward an immediate ceasefire, and for effective dialogue to resolve this dangerous impasse.”

President Macron met six times with Pope Francis: three times at the Vatican, and three times in other locations. The April 10 meeting will be his first with Pope Leo, as then-Prime Minister François Bayrou represented France at the Pope’s inaugural Mass.

Bishop Jude Arogundade of Ondo, for example, directed that all Easter Vigil Masses in his diocese begin at 5:00 PM on Holy Saturday.

Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik and Archbishop Carlo Redaelli began by thanking priests:

First of all, we wish to say to you: thank you! Thank you for your daily fidelity, often silent and hidden. Thank you for your “yes,” renewed each day, even amid hardships, loneliness and misunderstandings. Thank you because, through your ministry, Christ continues to draw near to His people, to heal, to forgive and to nourish them.

The prelates then reflected on sacrifice and service.

“Sacrifice, in its deepest truth, is not first of all renunciation, but gift: it is offering one’s life so that it may be wholly oriented to the love of God and of our brothers and sisters,” they wrote. “We are called to live as men given over, consecrated, who find in the Eucharist the source and summit of our existence. It is at the altar that we allow ourselves to be conformed to Christ, receiving the strength to accompany, to forgive and to console.”

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem celebrated the Holy Thursday evening Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (video), four days after Israeli police denied him access to the church on Palm Sunday.

Pope Leo XIV presided at the liturgical Celebration of the Passion of the Lord this afternoon in St. Peter’s Basilica before presiding at the Via Crucis at the Colosseum earlier tonight.